THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

HERBERT SPENCER 289
presumably rise in accord with the raised wages, and the situation would
be as before. 72 "We shall presently see the injustices once inflicted by the
employing classes paralleled by die injustices inflicted by the employed
classes." 73
Nevertheless his conclusions were not blindly conservative. He realized
the chaos and brutality of the social system that surrounded him, and he
looked about with evident eagerness to find a substitute. In the end he
gave his sympathies to the cooperative movement; he saw in this the
culmination of that passage from status to contract in which Sir Henry
Maine had found the essence of economic history. "The regulation of
labor becomes less coercive as society assumes a higher type. Here we
reach a form in which the coerciveness has diminished to the smallest
degree
consistent with combined action. Each member is his own master
in respect of the work he does; and is subject only to such rules, estab-
lished by majority of the members, as are needful for maintaining order.
The transition from the compulsory cooperation of militancy to the voluntary
cooperation of industrialism is completed.** 74 He doubts if human
beings are yet honest and competent enough to make so democratic a
system of industry efficient; but he is all for trying. He foresees a time
when industry will no longer be directed by absolute masters, and men
will no longer sacrifice their lives in the production of rubbish. "As the
contrast between the militant and the industrial types is indicated by
inversion of the belief that individuals exist for the benefit of the state
into the belief that the state exists for the benefit of individuals; so the
contrast between the industrial type and the type likely to be evolved from
it is indicated by inversion of the belief that life is for work into the belief
that work is for life." 75
VII. ETHICS: THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS
So important does this problem of industrial reconstruction seem to
Spencer that he devotes to it again the largest section of The Principles
of Ethics (1893) "this 1^ Part f my &&> ... to which I regard all
76
the preceding parts as subsidiary." As a man with all the moral severity
of the mid-Victorian, Spencer was especially sensitive to the problem of
finding a new and natural ethic to replace the moral code which had
been associated with the traditional faith. "The supposed supernatural
sanctions of right conduct do not, if rejected, leave a blank. There exist
natural sanctions no less pre-emptory, and covering a much wider field. 9*77
The new morality must be built upon biology. "Acceptance of the
78
doctrine of organic evolution determines certain ethical conceptions.**
"Ill, 545- "Autob., ii, 433. "HI, 57*-
"I* 575- ^Ethics, voL i, p. xiiL "I, 7.